Herlings Staying in Europe?

After a couple of weeks of hearing that World MXGP champion Jeffrey Herlings might be racing in the AMA nationals in 2022 and never a word from Herlings himself, I start to think that the chances of this now happening are getting smaller and smaller. Of which, as a selfish person, I am happy about, because I want to see the fastest man on the planet racing here in Europe or around the World, than just in USA. With the AMA Nationals starting on May 28, it seems like time is running out.

We contacted the Herlings team this week to ask if our postponed interview could be done in the coming days and the answer was no news now and no news in the foreseeable future. 

I always respect the riders and fortunately I haven’t had too much trouble with riders in the last 30 years, the odd disagreement, or some riders feeling I favour guys like Herlings or Gajser too much, but I try never to be disrespectful to the riders. 

The fact Herlings didn’t feel the need to do an interview, I am 100% okay with and hope him a quick recovery and I hope we see him racing soon. As a huge Herlings fan, I just want to see him racing as much as possible.

What I do know, if Herlings has something to tell, he will then give me 10 minutes to give his fans an inside look at the situation and I have always appreciated that, so the fact there is no news to me, means there won’t be a trip to USA in 2022, at least not until September when Herlings races for The Netherlands at the MXoN, which will all respect, they should win hands down.

“The Bullet” has been seen on television a lot lately in Holland, as he is a massive F1 and MotoGP fan and his opinion as a racer is always respected in his homeland. He has good insight and gives really good comments about his fellow motor-racers.

In one of the programs Herlings mentioned a soon to be trip to the doctor to check his injured foot, which was probably 10 days ago, and when I am told there is no news for the see able future, then I assume the doctor’s appointment didn’t go well.

We were also told that Herlings won’t line up at an MXGP round this month and also not at Maggiora in early May. So having not raced since the back end of 2021 (November 10) when he was crowned World MXGP champion, I find it really difficult to assume Herlings would go to America with just a week or two bike time and then race against the best AMA riders in the World, who have been racing since January. Even if it is a month’s bike time, which means he should be riding at a high level now, as the AMA Nationals begins in a little over a month.

So, in my humble opinion I get the feeling the whole AMA National thing won’t be happening and we won’t be seeing Herlings race until maybe June, hopefully in those Indonesian rounds of the championship.

published in MXLarge.com

Ray Archer image